Steelhands - Jaida Jones [20]
It had been difficult to get my desired amount of private time in my room for such practicing—Laure’s company was one thing, but Gaeth, too, had come to unstick my chimney just as he’d promised. There’d been a small metal pan normally used for cooking jammed in the flue, and I’d made him promise to take the thing with him, now that I knew it was there. Laure had suggested we might collect an entire dinner service at this rate, but not one whose practical use could be condoned.
Later that night, I’d been forced to lie with my stomach on the ground in order to properly inspect the floors for any soot or dust that might have come loose in the proceedings. I’d found none, but it had eaten into my time considerably.
There were shops along the ’Versity Stretch, too, but smaller ones, no doubt wishing to cater more to poor students and the size of their wallets. No remarkable hats to be found here, though I did espy several bookshops, a few cafés, and even a very small market—but I could see easily enough from the state of its shriveled fruits and unimpressive vegetables that I would not be giving such a place my business. There was a little apothecary hidden away down a narrow corner that sold poultices and remedies for those unfortunate enough to take ill in the winter months. I made a note of its location, quite sure that I would be availing myself of its services sometime in the future.
Despite my chimney being stopped up in the same manner as Laure’s had been, my room had remained persistently chilly and drafty from the first.
Still, it was difficult to remain in a dreary mood when one’s surroundings were no longer dreary in the slightest. Various men and women—dressed so smartly that it was impossible to imagine they weren’t headed somewhere terribly important—used the Stretch as a thoroughfare to get from one place to the next despite clearly not being students or professors of the ’Versity proper, and the street was terribly crowded, even though I hadn’t yet seen very many other students. I personally felt like a very small fish in a very large, overcrowded ocean—and one with very dull scales indeed. And I had no affection for the way men and women walked past you as though you didn’t exist, jostling you this way and that without so much as a by-your-leave. They never covered their mouths with kerchiefs when they sneezed, either, and I knew without a doubt I would be sick before the week was out.
“Why’re you making that face?” Laure asked me, nudging me in the side with her elbow.
“I can smell whatever it is you’ve gotten on your boot,” I replied. This was very true. “I told you, you should have changed it right away.”
“I’ve had worse on my boots,” Laure said. “Way worse, too.”
This was very true, as well, but I couldn’t bear to think about it.
The Stretch was wide, but branched off into a great many side streets along the way. One of these was my dear Rue d’St. Difference, which made up a border of sorts, as I understood it, with the neighboring Charlotte district. I was absolutely itching to see the lower town, but I hadn’t mentioned this to Laure for fear she’d try to knock the idea right out of my head.
If we were to keep going and make a sharp right, I realized, we would land ourselves smack where we’d been dropped off in the carriages—back at the statues of the Dragon Corps, though that was one landmark I’d seen quite enough of for the time being. One of them smelled like Laure’s boot did, and besides, it seemed rather morbid—to me, in any case—to erect statues of men who were both living and dead, and group them together like that. It was like inviting bad luck—though perhaps such superstitious notions were